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Chae Hawk and Secret Secret Dino Club at the Bug Jar

I headed out to The Bug Jar (219 Monroe Ave.) to see Chae Hawk, and The Secret Secret Dino Club. Okay, actually I went specifically because Secret Secret Dino Club is headed by a guy named Jayce, born just before I left high school and not far from where I grew up (according to the MySpace page). [That, and I'm writing this far later than I had intended so some people might miss it entirely.]

Anyway, the show was kicked off with a DJ along with a video projection. The Secret Secret Dino Club was up first and did some fun and clever hip-hop. Chae Hawk brought some stuff that was a little … oh, I don't know … less whimsical? — but similar nonetheless. The crowd was much younger than I was (except for some parental-looking folks) and this style of music is kind of new to me. It's an exercise in overstimulation — between the prerecorded music for the performers, the live performance, the video projection, and a DJ adding in a couple turntables, it can get to be a bit overwhelming. But somehow it all stays coherent, and with a thoroughly rough edge — kind of like an extension of the gritty garage sound of the 1960's and the punk sound of the 1970's, this is the gritty sound of the generation with access to cheap digital replication and editing.

As for Jayce, I stopped after the show and said hi. He said he's usually met by black women who share his name, and I'm the first guy. My own nickname was cemented by the presence of the cartoon show Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors during high school (and for you geeky trivia nuts [you know who you are], none other than J. Michael Straczynski wrote 13 episodes, according to IMDb). I told Jayce this and he said he was also named after a cartoon — presumably the same one. How weird is that? And who'd have thought that 20 years after naming a kid that that he'd end up 3 hours away from home and run into someone who got the same name from the same place. But he's going to have to keep looking because I'm not his father.